


Turning Points

by MashpotatoeQueen5



Series: Falling Apart and Building It Up [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abandonment, Abuse, Abuse Aftermath, Alcoholic Henry Laurens, Alexander is a Mess, And I apologize for all and any inaccuracies, And over tired, Angst, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, But the kiddos are working through their issues, But the last chapter is dark, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coma, Court, Emotional Manipulation, Financial Issues, Financial Problems, Foster Care, Gay John Laurens, Gen, George 'll help though, Grief, Grief/Mourning, He is overworked, Henry Laurens Sr is a bad bad man, Henry Laurens' A+ Parenting, Homophobic Henry Laurens, Homophobic Language, Hospitals, I have no idea how that works in France, John Laurens' Siblings - Freeform, Lafayette's parents aren't the best people..., Manipulative Relationship, Mentions of not great foster parenting, Minor Character Death, Mourning, Police, Police officers, Poverty, So much angst, Stress, Teacher George Washington, That has happened in the past, There is PHYSICAL ABUSE, Things get better I swear, Torture, Trials, Triggers, Well - Freeform, Working Teenagers, and crying, and needs to take care of himself, car crash, close enough, multiple jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14978933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MashpotatoeQueen5/pseuds/MashpotatoeQueen5
Summary: In which Lafayette is confused but in a better place, Hercules' future is finally starting to look up, Alex might finally be able to handle his schedule, and John finds an escape route.Or, none of them have the best beginnings, but here are the moments where things start to turn around.(Recommended you read the first part of the series, but not necessary!)





	1. Lafayette

Lafayette is twelve when it happens.

Piers comes by on a Wednesday, which is wrong for two reasons. It’s wrong because he’s already dropped off the next three weeks of food, and because the delivery service is only supposed to run on Saturdays anyways. The man’s not wearing his usual work outfit, either, which makes Lafayette a little nervous and apprehensive. 

It’s different. It’s worrying. It’s  _ new. _

(It’s a little exciting.)

Piers knocks on the door, looking a little guilty and a little determined, face drawn serious and pitched in a frown. He asks if he can come in, and he’s the first person besides Lafayette to enter the front door in a long, long time.

His parents have been away for six months, twenty two days, and almost thirteen hours. It’s been the longest amount of time they have been away in a single trip, and the house really has been very lonely and very quiet, and no matter how loudly Lafayette plays his music the walls seem to creep in ever closer, the air becoming so thick he can hardly breathe, the loneliness so oppressive Lafayette’s begun talking to himself and all the non animate objects just to hear  _ someone’s _ voice, even if its his own.

So he lets Piers in, throws the doors wide open and chatters away about everything he can think of. It feels so  _ good  _ to talk to somebody, to talk to an actual, real live person who responds to what he’s saying and asks questions and is  _ there,  _ is  _ real real real. _ It makes Lafayette feel a little more real too, a little less like a doll stuck in its very own doll house, abandoned in a closet after the child who owned it got too big to care.

At one point, the delivery man puts a hand on Lafayette’s shoulder, and he can’t help but lean into the touch. It’s been so long since he engaged in physical contact, so long since the last shoulder pat and hair ruffle. He can’t remember the last time someone’s hugged him, doesn’t think anyone ever has.

The man withdraws his hand too soon. Lafayette has to resist the urge to reach out and grab it back, has to resist the urge to cry. He wonders if it would be appropriate to hug Piers for no reason at all, decides that it wouldn’t be.

Desperately, desperately wishes that he could anyways.

( _ But no, can’t scare him off, can’t disobey, can’t make him leave, can’t- can’t- can’t- _ )

Piers lets him talk for awhile, taking part in more idle conversation in one sitting than Lafayette thinks he’s done in his entire life. It’s fantastic and amazing and wonderful, and if he wasn’t so busy trying to be a good host he might have been clapping and cheering and dancing for happiness. 

As it is, he puts out a plate of Oreos and offers a glass of water to the man. Maybe, if he’s polite and nice enough, if he’s good enough, Piers will want to come and visit him again someday, like when he next delivered groceries or next time he’s free. Even if he doesn’t though, he’s made Lafayette’s week. His month. Heck, Piers has made Lafayette’s  _ year. _

They sit on the nice guest couch and they talk and they eat Oreos and after half an hour of conversation Piers finally seems to work up the courage to ask him about his parents.

Lafayette shuts down, looks down and starts fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, mumbles, “ _ Out… _ ”

Doesn’t know why he does it. Doesn’t know why his stomach turns sour and heavy with shame whenever the question comes up. Maybe it’s because he knows that his parents never take him anywhere because they’re embarrassed of him, their failure son, their screw up. 

Maybe he’s hoping that if Piers never finds out, the man will never feel the need to leave him, too. That his presence won’t make the other embarrassed, that the presence of the child who is such a mistake that his own parents can’t love him won’t make him back out and back away.

The delivery man doesn’t let up, asks him when they’ll be back.

Lafayette shrugs. The carpet suddenly looks very interesting: he’s never realized the particular shade of cream it becomes in the evening sun.

Piers takes a breath, tentatively asks when he last saw them.

Lafayette doesn’t want to tell him. Doesn’t want to reveal his shortcomings, that he’s so awful that even his parents can’t stand his presence. He doesn’t want to be left alone, not again, not when the man’s company has been so nice, has driven away the looming walls for a while.

But he has to. Lying is bad, and Lafayette doesn’t need another reason to drive other people away. 

Besides, it’s his fault he is left alone. It is his fault that no one can love him. It is his fault, and if Piers leaves because of it, Lafayette can’t blame him.

So he tells him, nonchalant and just a little quiet, and waits for the ensuing reaction.

He’s not surprised when Piers quickly makes his excuses and hurries out the door, a frown marring his features and a hand fishing in his pocket to retrieve his phone and car keys.

He _ is _ surprised by how much it hurts.

Lafayette watches the man drive away, the small blue car getting smaller and smaller as it travels down the winding roads and disappears into the horizon.

He stands on the front step long after the car is out of sight, and long after the sun goes down.

A cold wind blows, and he wraps his arms around himself, and imagines the phantom touch of Pier’s hand on his shoulder.

It really has been a very, very long time.

_ Look at what you did,  _ he thinks to himself,  _ now you’ve made it even longer. _

No one responds. He supposes that’s the problem with talking to yourself.

He walks inside, and pretends that closing the front door doesn’t feel like the house is swallowing him whole.

 

* * *

 

The next day, just as Lafayette is finishing up his online assignments, the doorbell rings.

He freezes.

_ Perhaps _ , he thinks, pencil gripped tight in hand,   _ it is simply my imagination, hoping to hear something that is not there. _

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, doesn’t want to go racing downstairs to fling open a door and reveal an empty landscape.

But the bell rings again and Lafayette can  _ feel  _ the grin climb up his features, can feel he hope bubble up in his chest. 

_ Piers! He’s come back! _

He practically flies downstairs and to the front door, swinging it wide open in his enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm that quickly drops when he realizes that, no, Piers hasn't come back, that there are three finely dressed police officers waiting on the other side.

Lafayette blinks up at them.

They blink back.

Finally, after a minute of silence, the young female cop of the trio leans forwards and asks if they can come in, asks if they can look around and ask a few questions.

Lafayette steps aside, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say. The walls are closing in awfully fast suddenly, something cold and hard lumping in his throat, and he wonders if you can go to jail for simply being an embarrassment to society.

What he does know is that his parents would be disappointed, and maybe that’s the worst bit of all.

Two of the police officers sit down with him on the couch, while the third one goes to tour around the house. Lafayette wishes he would have known that there were people coming over, so that he could have cleaned everything better.

He wishes he would have known so that he could get dressed properly. He’s in his pajamas still. He feels  _ naked.  _

He feels scared.

It’s not a very pleasant feeling.

_ “ _How long has it been since you last saw your parents?_ ” _

Lafayette blinks, looking up tentatively at the bushy bearded male police officer to his left. His facial hair is thick, the texture like Lafayette would imagine a bear, and it’s not helping him feel any better.

_"Six_ _months, twenty three days, and… nine hours? It may be ten…”_

The man instantly looks aghast, and the lady cop’s lips purse.

_ “ Do you have any caretakers?”  _ she asks.

_ “ Caretakers?”  _ and although the word is in his own language, it sounds foreign. 

_ “ Adults,”  _ says the man, his voice sounding a little pleading and very worried, “ _ people to take care of you.” _

Lafayette scratches his head. He doesn’t understand what they’re asking, doesn’t understand what they want him to say….

_ “ Piers stops by with food every three weeks, and there’s a gardener who comes once a month. Is that what you mean?” _

The officers trade looks, matching frowns on their faces, and Lafayette huddles in on himself. He’s messed up, he’s given the wrong answer and he’s messed up and they won’t  _ like  _ him now, they’re gonna leave him too, or maybe they’ll lock him up.

They ask him more and more questions, questions about how he makes his meals and how he does his school work and what his entertainment looks like and how he contacts his parents. Lafayette answers them, answers one question after another, and despairs as the male police officer looks more and more distressed and the female police officer looks more and more angry.

_ I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry ‘msorry’msorry’msorry- _

He wishes the floor would open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole. He wishes he could simply cease to exist. He wishes, for the first time in forever, that things could be quiet and still again.

The third police officer comes back from his search, and he’s shaking his head. Lafayette wonders why, doesn’t have enough time to ask because he’s being loaded up into a police car and driven to the station.

The car feels weird, because it’s been so long since he’s last ridden in one. He grips onto the seat cushions tight, wishes that someone would talk to him, wishes he could understand what was going on.

The unpopulated hills give way to buildings and highways and small shops and restaurants. Lafayette cranes his neck, tries to look past the figures surrounding him, tries to take it all in. There are so many  _ people,  _ all wandering and meandering about, living there lives, and it makes him feel small and inconsequential, makes him want to jump out the window and hug every single one, or talk to them, or  _ something. _ Something to prove that they’re real and there and close.

But they also make him want to hide. Make him want to duck his head and curl under his covers and block the whole wide world out, make him want to scream and cry and  _ shake,  _ because there are so many of them, everywhere, and after so long where there was nothing, just four heavy walls pressing in on him, pressing down on him and drowning him and choking him with their silence, the sudden liberation makes him realize that he’s forgotten how to breathe without their weight.

He does neither of these things, but he watches. He watches, wide eyed and quiet, and the unfamiliar world he could never quite reach for all his gazing of windows and trekking of trees forgets to look back.

The police station is cold and plain, and there are many questions and many people, everywhere and all at once. Lafayette does his best, sits at desks with a kind old lady in a wrinkled grey suit who talks to him about many things and asks him all the same questions of the officers before.

Lafayette answers, and his tongue feels thick and his tongue feels like sand.

He wonders if there’s a jail for people who commit the crime of being unlovable. He wonders if he finally became such a failure that his parents felt the need to have him removed from the world all together.

He sits back straight and legs crossed, trying to avoid fumbling with his words, trying to avoid spilling the small plastic cup of water they give him, trying to avoid getting little crumbs on the couch from the bag of peanuts he’s offered. His hands are trembling slightly, and everything just this side of too much, and a headache has begun to pound loud and hard in his ears.

More people come in. There are more questions. Before the walls had been quiet, but now they are screaming, and Lafayette just wants to close his eyes and cover his ears, squeeze everything tight and small until no one can see him, no one can touch him, no one can realize he exists at all.

It’s  _ so much,  _ and it’s everywhere, and there’s no escape. 

He’s tired. It’s late. He wants his bed. He wants his house. He wants his quiet routine. 

He wants his parents, desperately, wants them to come and somehow make everything okay. 

_ Idiot,  _ a voice says, and the voice is cruel and cold,  _ you’re only here because they don’t want you in the first place. _

His fingers start shaking in his lap, and he clenches them into fists. The bright lights makes his eyes water, and he blinks them fast and hard and clears them. The constant questions make his head pound, and he smiles and he talks and he ignores it.

Finally,  _ finally,  _ the conversation ceases, and Lafayette is lead to a small side office where the original lady officer sets him up on a small cot. He lays down, wonders when he gets to go home, doesn’t dare ask. 

The officer gives him her jacket. He wraps it around himself and closes his eyes, pretends that the soft tap tap tapping of the computer keys filling the dimmed room doesn’t make him want to flinch.

Sleep does not find him easy, and he wonders if it’s because hes so far away from where he’s supposed to be, where dreams of brighter things usually find him.

* * *

 

The next few weeks pass in a blur of unfamiliar sights and sounds and dizzying, rapid changes that make Lafayette’s head hurt. He gets to go back to his house and pack up a bag full of clothes and necessities and well worn loved objects under the watchful eyes of an elderly officer. He moves in with an estranged uncle he didn’t even know existed, who is loud and eccentric and in and out as he signs papers and speaks to officers and testifies in court.

Testifies in court. Because there is a trial.

Lafayette doesn’t understand what’s going on, doesn’t understand anything at all, and no one seems to want to explain to him.

They tell him that his parents weren’t doing their job right. They tell him that they were leaving him alone too long.

He wants to  _ scream.  _ Because it’s his fault, his failures, it’s him who pushes them away. They haven’t done anything wrong,  _ he  _ has, and what they’re doing is  _ fair. _

It’s what they’ve always done. It’s how the world works. When you’re naughty you get punished, when you commit a crime justice is sought. Children shouldn’t be seen, shouldn’t be heard, time and companionship is a gift not an expectation. 

That’s how this works. Why do none of them understand that? 

But the words clog weirdly in his throat, and everything is too fast and too much, and all the world seems to spin around him and beyond him while he is left behind and gathering dust.

He sees them, he sees them just once, and they come up to him and they  _ hold  _ him and they tell him they love him so much, and he soaks it up like a wilted flower finally placed in the light of the sun. He clings to them, wishes they would never let go, and they cajole him and they remind him to tell the court about how  _ good  _ they are, about how happy he is.

And he nods and he nods and he nods, because he would give anything, give anything to have this just a few minutes longer, anything to make them proud.

But the officers see, and they get separated, and he doesn’t understand as he reaches out to them, tentative and unsure, doesn’t understand why their welcoming arms have suddenly returned close to their sides, why their faces have suddenly gone so cold and hard.

(He’s done something wrong, what did he do wrong- please just  _ tell  _ him, he didn’t mean to, he didn’t, he didn’t, please-)

The court doesn’t end in their favour. 

( _ “Why!?” he wants to scream, but his throat is clenched tight and there isn’t any air, and he is surrounded by people who don’t even feel real, not really, like the pretend phantoms he used to dance around with in empty kitchens and empty ballrooms and empty floors.) _

He gets placed with the uncle, a kind, jolly man who has never had kids and never planned on having any, but is trying all the same. Lafayette has met him once, maybe twice and the memories are blurred and fuzzy around the edges.The man is not around much, working most of the day and only arriving home late at night, but Lafayette keeps quiet and is very, very good, and he hopes that it is enough. 

(He won’t drive this person away. He’ll be good.  _ He’ll be good.) _

The house is smaller than he is used to, and Lafayette does his work under the couch and pretends that he is not preparing for everything to fall down around him.

He doesn’t prepare well enough. Only a week passes with his new guardian, a tentative week where a few measly hours is spent in the same room with one another, and there is a car crash and there is a coma, and Lafayette watches time zoom past in a dizzying blur of dry eyes-  _ he didn’t know this man, couldn’t know this man, why is he visiting the hospital, why are people touching him, why are people pitying him with their eyes, he doesn’t understand, what is going on-  _ and police officers and concerned professional looking men and women talking to him, saying things that he can’t hear, every word sounding as if it is coming through a heavy sheet of glass.

_ (It’s too much,  _ his mind whispers. _ It’s too much, I don’t- I can’t- Slow down-) _

They ask him things, and Lafayette, not daring to turn them against him, nods and doesn’t question it. He’ll do what they want him to. He’ll do anything. This, at least, is familiar.

Time slips through his fingers like sand. He gets told to pack his bags and he does so. They guide him to a plane and he gets on. The world passes by, and Lafayette watches, and his ears feel as if they are stuffed in cotton and his own life feels like he is seeing it through a movie screen.

They arrive at an airport in Virginia, U.S.A, and Lafayette follows the social worker through security and customs and baggage claim, hundreds of people shuffling and moving around him, and he is numb.

The people don’t feel real. He doesn’t feel real. There are ants in his skin. He wants his parents. _ (His parents don’t want him.)  _ He wants to go home. _ (He’s not allowed there anymore.) _

Distantly, he remembers that he’s going to be staying in the house of his godparents, old family friends. The Washington's.

They’re not related to him. They have no obligations. Lafayette knows that it is only a matter of time till the penny drops, knows it’s only a matter of time until he pushes them away, until he messes up and they hate him.

He knows.

He can’t bring himself to care. Lafayette is fine on his own. That’s how it’s  _ supposed  _ to be. You can’t embarrass anyone if there’s no one around.

They stumble out of the airport and into the arrivals section. English is everywhere, streaming out of people’s mouths and written on signs and menus. Lafayette could understand it, he thinks, if everything wasn’t so far away.

(It’s close. It’s too close. It’s pressing in, everything, everything is pressing in and Lafayette is  _ drowning- _ )

He expects there to be a car, for the social worker to drop him off at the house and leave him, job done and dusted. He expects to meet the Washington's in passing, maybe when they’re coming back from a trip or while they’re giving him instructions on how to order food deliveries.

They defy his expectations.

They’re standing at the terminal, right outside the gate. They have a sign with his name on it, they have smiles on their faces. (Mrs. Washington is beaming, Mr. Washington is giving a small kind grin. They feel  _ real.) _

Lafayette steps forwards. He has a suitcase full of things and clothes and a pile of paperwork. He is a burden and a waste of space, and he knows that this is just temporary, knows that he should keep quiet and still, that the less attention he brings unto himself the better, for children shouldn’t be seen or heard, shouldn’t be noticed at all. He knows that he is already messing up, knows that what he’s about to do is  _ wrong. _

But for the first time in weeks the fog surrounding him is lighter, and the Washington’s are smiling at him, and Lafayette looks up at them and their strange homemade sign and their strange sincere grins, and he feels just a little real himself.

And so the Washington’s are smiling at him, and Lafayette finds himself smiling tentatively back.


	2. Hercules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Hercules so much. I hope I did him justice....

Hercules walks home from school with Hugh by his side, hands shoved deep in his pockets and listening quietly as his younger brother talks about a science project that his grade is being forced to do after the winter’s break, already mentally calculating what funds they’ll have to give up to provide the necessary items for the assignment. Somewhere, he can hear the quiet cooing of a pigeon hiding from the cold winter’s air, his own footsteps making steady tracks through the thin layer of dirty snow on the ground.

His ears are cold. His ears are cold and his knees and back are aching a bit from lifting and stacking large sacks of flour for the last few hours. The wind is brisk, and he needs to get back to the house and start making dinner and clean up and do homework and figure out how the hell they’re going to get the money for Hugh. But that’s fine. He’ll make it work.

He will.

Miracle of miracles, the rust bucket of an elevator their building has is actually working for once, and they don’t have to take the stairs. Hercules follows Hugh as his brother eagerly hops on, rubbing chilled fingers together and holding the door as Mrs. Meyer from down the hall hobbles in after them, weighed down by her mountain of shopping bags.

They share the cordial smiles of people who have spent their lives living near each other and haven’t had more than four conversations. Mrs. Meyer has a phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder, talking absentmindedly into it as Hercules presses the button for the ninth floor, knowing instinctively which one it is despite the fact that the numbers themselves have long since been rubbed away.

Hercules isn’t really paying attention to the woman’s conversation, eyes staring distantly at a wall and mind racing about what money in their budget could be moved around and what he could make for dinner that wasn’t soup.

(He was so sick and tired of soup.)

But Hugh  _ is  _ paying attention.

Hercules jolts out of his thoughts when his little brother suddenly speaks up and  _ interrupts _ the lady’s phone call, clearing his throat and awkwardly butting in.

“My brother can sew!”

Hercules swings his head to look at the smaller boy and then up at the woman who’s staring at him, feeling his hands clench into fists within the jackets of his pockets. His brain is desperately trying to remember what she had been conversing about, something about how she couldn’t find something in the stores…?

“Is that true, young man? Do you know how to sew?”

Hercules nods, a bit hesitant: he’s not always had the best reactions to his ‘girly’ habits in the past.

“Do you think you could make a rainbow mermaid tail for my granddaughter before Christmas?”

Again, Hercules nods.

“Yes- I, uh- I mean, I would need the materials, of course, but I should be able to make that…”

Mrs. Meyer is still staring at him, eyes sharp and piercing, and Hercules meets the gaze and curses Hugh to high hell in the privacy of his own mind.

The woman mutters, “I’ll call you back, Karen,” into her phone, and then suddenly Hercules has Mrs. Meyer’s undivided attention and discussion intense enough to make Hercules feel like he was preparing for a secret service mission instead of making arrangements to make a little girl’s Christmas gift.

By the time the elevator ride finishes and they’re all getting off at their floor, Hercules has a hundred dollars for buying materials, a slightly dazed expression, and a commission to create a mermaid tail sleeping sack.

Hugh knocks his shoulder and grins, something bright and shining in his eyes in a way Hercules hasn’t seen much of since their dad died three years ago. It seems to spark something in Hercules’s own chest, because suddenly he’s grinning too, bubbles of enthusiasm and inspiration suddenly expanding in his chest.

That night, he ends of making sandwiches with only slightly stale bread and the meat he had picked off the bones of the chicken carcasses his boss at the tiny outback grocery store had given him. His mind is alight with ideas as to how to make his project work and what materials he wants to use, and he continues to think about colour patterns and styles even as he convinces Hugh to get an early start on his reading assignment and sets the bones in a pot to make a broth for tomorrow. 

He sketches out his designs on their tiny little coffee table- ignoring the thumping pounding music of the party going on upstairs- while he waits for his mom to get home from work, and when she finally arrives he serves her a sandwich and watches as she gives him a tired small lipped smile. Hugh’s long since gone to bed, but they talk about her work and their plans for the next couple of weeks, about what time they might be home tomorrow and whether or not Hugh’ll be fine alone on his own.

She’s gotten a promotion, apparently, in one of her jobs. She’s grinning at him from beyond the bags in her eyes, soft and shining and wonderful, and Hercules grins back and they do mock whisper cheers and celebrations with each other, jostling the thread bare blankets on thrown over their shoulders and both mentally rewarding each other because it means that they’re safe for another month, at least, that their meager finances haven’t gotten the one up on them yet.

As his mother goes to bed, Hercules spied her checking her simple ancient flip phone and smiling down at the screen before her bedroom door closes behind her. He blinks, tries to place where he’s seen that grin before, and can’t quite remember.

 

The next day, Hercules gets up at the crack of dawn, races down the winding streets of his neighborhood, and stumbles into his first day as a clerk for his winter break job mere seconds before he would be considered officially late. He smiles sheepishly at the manager, sets himself up at his station, and whiles away the hours in his own head as he goes through the monotone motions of checking out items and listing prices. The minute his shift is over, he’s catching a tightly crammed bus to make his way over to the closest fabric shop.

The bell chimes lightly when he walks in, and it is somehow the most wonderful sound he’s ever heard, the aroma of fabric softener and material flooding his senses and leaving him just this side of giddy.

He grapples for the hundred dollar note and his list, and sets to work, hiking around the tiny shop to get the materials he needs and occasionally trailing a finger down the different cloths on display, his mind wandering to all the different things he could make.

_ Someday,  _ he thinks,  _ someday, I’ll come back, and I’ll buy whatever I want and create whatever I want, and nothing’s going to stop me. _

It’s a good thought, and he holds onto it, even though somewhere tha back of his mind is screaming at him because right now he’s pretty sure he won’t even be able to make his way into college, much less own his own clothing store.

He stumbles home in a plethora of fabric and dizzy ideas, and Hugh watches with a sort of serene horror from their muggy couch as Hercules whirlwinds into the room, quickly gets dinner in the oven and starts laying out fabrics and and drawing tiny, tiny marks to determine where he’ll cut. 

The next three days pass in a blur of waking up early, working at the shop, and sewing away. By the end of it, though, he has a lovely rainbow mermaids tail that shimmers with sparkles and is trimmed with neat aqua blue edgings, and he holds up his creation and he can’t stop grinning, because it’s perfect, it’s perfect, and it was so much fun to make and so worth all the little stabby needle pricks and late nights.

He marches proudly down the hall and knocks on Mrs. Meyer’s door, his excitement bubbling up inside him, along with no small amount of apprehension.

_ What if she hates it?  _

But no, Mrs. Meyer opens the door with a flourish, inviting him into the kitchen and serving him biscuits from one of those fancy tins and smiling bright and wide and eager at him, oohing and aahing at his work and exclaiming about how much her granddaughter is going to love it, and Hercules sits back and grins and then starts when the woman starts taking out her purse to  _ pay  _ him.

“But- you already paid for the material. You don’t have to-”

“Shh, boy,” she gently scolds, “just take the money, will you?”

And there’s something warm and kind in her eyes, and so Hercules offers her a sheepish, half embarrassed smile and tentatively grabs the money out of her hands, shoving it into his pocket without even checking how much it is.

He sort of regrets not looking when he gets into the relative safety of his shared bedroom and takes the note out, blinking down at yet another hundred dollar bill.

_ (It was too much- it was too much why was she giving him so much money maybe she made a mistake maybe she meant to give a ten maybe she regrets it maybe she’s thinking he’ll owe her a favour, but that is a lot of money, too much money-) _

He almost wants to turn right around and give it back to her, demand less, demand nothing at all.

But-

But-

But it’s almost Christmas and they don’t have a tree and they don’t have the money to have a proper Christmas meal and they don’t have any proper gifts for one another, and he knows there was this one simple necklace that his mother was eying at that one shop and his brother had really wanted a deck of pokemon cards and he knows that getting a bouquet for dad was important to mom and--

And-

And it would be nice, to have this. To have this one moment where poverty didn’t feel like it pressed quite so close.

So Hercules clenches his fists, tight and determined, around the bill, and he keeps it.

Christmas dawns bright and early, and he and Hugh eat cereal together as they wait for their mother to get home from her late night shift. There’s a proper roast chicken that Hercules carefully researches online on how to make for dinner and Hugh cheers at his cards and Mom gasps at her necklace, mumbling, “You shouldn’t have, oh you  _ shouldn’t have,” _ and beaming at him bright and tearful despite her words.

(Later, when the suns starts to set and the evening dies down, they’ll get dressed in their threadbare coats and make their solemn little journey to the dingy cemetery four blocks away, with only a quick stop at a local flower shop along the way. The petals will be bright against the grey stone and dreary earth, and they will stand huddled together and murmur small insights and quiet wishes to a man who has long since moved on from this life.)

He and his tired mother stay up late that night, swapping stories and sharing laughs as the moon wanes and the faded stars shine. At some point, she gets a text, and she flips open her phone and grins at its contents, that same bright grin working its way onto her features.

It takes him a minute, but he finally places it as the sort of loving smile she used to give their father, before the crash, before everything.

He blinks at her for a few moments, processing.

(Part of him wants to yell and retreat and demand answers and cite grievances. But that part is quickly swallowed whole, because he hasn’t see his mother shine so bright in years, and isn’t willing to stop her from her happiness, not when she does so much, not when she  _ deserves  _ so much.)

Instead, he leans over her shoulder and ask her who she’s talking to, a mischievous smirk firmly in place. His Mom will blink up at him, a deer in the headlights, and then only partially guiltily swipe stray hairs from her face.

She asks, quietly, “You don’t think it’s too soon, do you?”

And Hercules can only shake his head, because, because-

“Dad would’ve wanted you to be happy.”

And his mother smiles at him, and Hercules smiles back. 

Two weeks later, a frazzled man comes knocking at their door, asking about if Hercules would be willing to take on another job. Hercules will blink, nod, and set to work. It is the first of many clients to come, and with every commission comes another paycheck, and Hercules saves up one meager dollar at a time and feels his eyes flickering towards the small list of possible colleges he’d made more and more, something like hope welling up inside of him.

Four weeks later, Hercules gets a hand drawn thank you card, the bright crayon shining up at him. He’ll put it on his dresser and grin at it sometimes when sleep seems to elude him, and it will follow him for years and years and years, tucked away in his possessions as a silent reminder of where it all began.


	3. Alexander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while.. hehehe
> 
> It's a bit short, but the next chapter should be longer, and very, very angsty...
> 
> Poor, poor John.
> 
> ALSO.
> 
> I'm not sure about my editing of this, so if you see any mistakes- especially when it comes to the tenses- please let me know!!
> 
> Love you all! *blows kisses*

With every tear that Alexander sheds he feels like screaming.

He’s supposed to be better than this, supposed to be  _ over  _ this. He’s older now, stronger now, and crying isn’t supposed to be a part of the equation. He hasn't cried much since the first time a foster parent had snapped at him and told him to man the hell up, to stop being such a  _ wimp,  _ to stop being such a  _ girl. _

(Alexander is a learner: he takes his lessons to heart.)

Everytime tears did manage to escape, though, he had been able to take a deep breath and suppress whatever pain causing them somewhere deep into his stomach. He’s cried enough for a lifetime: no need to prove his weakness even more.

Because that’s what this is. A weakness. A flaw. Tears make people look at you with pity, with scorn, with the type of look that suggested you were little more than nothing.

Alexander isn’t nothing. He refuses to be nothing. He isn’t going to be another statistic, another face in the crowd. He  _ isn’t. _ He’s going to be great, to be remembered.  _ Just you wait- _

His breath hitches in another sob.

He needs to  _ stop. _

But he can’t. He  _ can’t.  _ It was as if a flip had been switched and now every suppressed pain and emotion was now streaming down his face. He can’t stop, can’t control it, can’t seem to get in command of his own body, and that terrifies him more than he cares to admit.

Washington is still hugging him. He’s still crying, and Washington is still hugging him.

Mentally, he’s screaming, because he needs to  _ shut up shut up shut up your gonna turn him away your gonna make him think your weak your gonna disgust him stop crying and walk away and pretend that this never happened. You have work to do, you’re wasting time, you’re running out of time- _

He feels like he’s choking on thin air, feels like he’s drowning again, the water rushing over his head and all around him, air and no air and air again, flash floods ravaging the streets and someone screaming his name as he gets pulled away, helpless.

(He had eventually managed to latch onto and old tree, had climbed up it’s branches as high as he dared and waited in the howling wind and thundering clouds, squeezing the trunk with every ounce of muscle he had and looking up to see a yellow sky.)

His muscles shake, now, too. They tremble and strain as if under some great weight, and the straps of his backpack dig deep into his shoulders.

He needs to stop crying. He can’t stop crying.

He needs to  _ go.  _ He needs to  _ run. _

But Washington is holding him, his arms wrapped tight in perhaps the safest grip Alex has ever known since his mother died, and he can’t bring himself to leave.

His thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at once, flyaway paper that he can’t quite grasp.

He feels overwhelmed. Everything is too much.  _ Everything is too much- _

Eventually, eventually he runs out of tears to shed, and he stills. He feels empty. He feels numb. He feels like an empty husk. 

There’s a wet patch on Washington’s shirt. Alex stares at it.

Mr. Washington pulls away, and something inside the youth tenses.  _ Here it comes,  _ he thinks,  _ here it comes. He’s not going want you anymore, he’s going fail you in all your classes, he’s going to  _ _ hate _ _ you- _

“Alex,” the man says, and against his will he feels himself tensing.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

_ Wait- what? _

“W-what?”

“Would you like a glass of water?”

Mr. Washington is looking at him, his eyes calm and sincere and concerned, and Alex can feel himself begin to tremble again.

His fingers flex. He shifts on the balls of his feet.

“W-water?”

He winces at how dry his throat sounds.

The older man nods, stepping back and filling him a paper cup from the small water cooler in the corner of the room. When it’s pressed into Alex’s hands, the liquid inside it trembles with his shaking hands.

“Water. You’ve cried a lot, and it’s important to stay hydrated.”

Internally, Alex cringes at the reminder of his lack of composure, eyes straying back to the wet spot on the teacher’s shirt. His stomach clamps uncomfortably- from lack of food or shame he can’t really tell, not that it mattered much either way- and his heart is still pounding too hard in his chest.

He lets out a huff of breath shakily through his nose.

“O-Oh.”

Mr. Washington is staring at him expectantly, so he mechanically brings the cup to his mouth and takes a sip.

The sip quickly becomes a gulp when he realizes just how  _ thirsty  _ he is, how dry his throat is, how refreshing and cool the water is. Perhaps he goes a little too fast, spilling some down his shirt, but he figures that the whole situation can’t get any more mortally embarrassing and awful, and that there’s no way he could make himself look even  _ worse  _ in the eyes of Washington at this point, so it doesn’t really matter.

As soon as he finishes the first cup, the older man refills it and hands it back to him, along with a small packet of Oreos. 

He’s almost tempted to give them back. The Oreos are a gift, and Alex knows that people didn’t give without expecting something in return.

But-

But-

He’s hungry. He’s  _ starving,  _ and he’s so emotionally and physically exhausted he can hardly think straight, much less consider the pros and cons of eating a packet of cookies. So, he opens the package and nibbles on one, letting Washington seat him down in one of the plushy chairs in front of the desk.

Slowly, he lowers the cookie.

_ Ah,  _ he thinks,  _ now it starts.  _

But it doesn’t.

It  _ doesn’t. _

Alex watches in confusion as Washington starts thumbing through the files in his desk drawer, pulling out an especially thick one with the boy’s name on it, tugging at the schedule tucked into the front pages and splaying it out on the wooden surface between them.

“Alright, Alexander,” the man says, “let’s see what we can do to help make everything a little less overwhelming.”

There are still tear tracks on his cheeks. He feels dirty and grimy. He feels tired and numb. The Oreo in his lap is half eaten and his fingers are still trembling. This is wrong. This is all wrong.

The words come spilling out of his numb lips before he can stop them.

“Why- why are you doing this?”

Mr. Washington pauses in his ramblings.

“What, Alexander?”

The teen shifts in his seat. Confused. Lost. He gestures wildly around them, at the desk. At the chairs. At himself.

“ _ This.  _ Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”

Something in the teacher’s eyes softens. 

“Because you are my student, and I see you as a bright young man with a brilliant future ahead of you, and I care about you, and you deserve to be taken care of.”

Alex squints his eyes at the older man, not quite buying it. That was too simple. Too cheesy. Too Disney. People don’t care about people like Alex. That’s just not how the world  _ works _ .

But Alex is a go getter. Alex sets goals and works until he achieves them. He asks questions and he gets his answers, no matter what.

Washington looks like a man who has answers, a man who would know the way to help. He’s smart, and Alex can respect that. Alex can follow that.

So slowly, hesitantly, he nods.

Worse comes to worse, if Washington tries to get too big of a favour in return, Alex can run for it.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

And so Washington smiles, leans over the desk, and begins again. And Alexander sits, fidgeting, but listening, tentatively willing to take the offered helping hand.

  
  


Alexander starts a new routine.

At 6:00 AM on the dot, he wakes up to the sound of his alarm and finishes whatever work he has left over from last night, where a strict eleven P.M. bedtime had been set up, with three alarms put into place just to make sure that it wasn’t ignored.

(Mr. Washington had tried to suggest a ten o’clock bedtime, but Alex had laughed until he started sounding hysteric.)

He makes himself coffee, sometimes gave a wave to his foster dad when the man was up early enough, and at seven fifteen, Mr. Washington pulls up at the house and Alexander hops inside his car.

(His foster parents weren't  _ bad.  _ They were just… nonchalant. They just didn’t  _ care  _ much, too many kids and too little time. Alex was pretty sure all the foster children were just money sacks to them, but better money sacks than punching bags.)

They drive to school, and Alex has another hour to work on scholarship and school applications with Mr. Washington’s expertise and advise readily available, making the whole process a thousand times easier and so much  _ faster. _

Then there’s class, and the general school day, and afterwards, if he doesn’t have one of his many clubs, Alex will head back to the office, do more work until Washington was ready to head back, and then catch another ride with him.

It’s still a lot. It’s still  _ a lot.  _ The endless need to make everything perfect, to do above and beyond, to be impressive and well worded, is still there. The constant pressure of needing top grades and the looming worry of losing his scholarship is still present. He still forgets to eat at times, still doesn’t sleep much, and sometimes he buries his face in his hand-me-down pillow and  _ screams _ .

But-

But-

But it is  _ easier.  _ It’s easier, having someone he can go to and say  _ I don’t understand.  _ Someone he can go to and say  _ I need help. _

He’s still on the lookout, of course. Still waiting for that moment Washington will turn around and demand something in return, standing ready to jump for when the rug is pulled under his feet. You don’t go through his life and survive without being cautious.

For now, though, this-

This is nice.


	4. John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... dark.
> 
> Darker than previous chapters. And longer.
> 
> Sorry, John....

They’re at a quiet family dinner, sitting around the dining table and eating the spaghetti and meatballs John whipped up upon getting home from school. Dad is in one of his better moods, starting conversations with his younger siblings, asking about their day. He even manages to ask after John, which makes him smile a little and tentatively put out the good grade he had gotten in his math test, a solid B+.

The good humoured look instantly vanishes from his father’s face, and John winces, ducks his head down low. He shouldn’t have said anything, he should have kept his _damn mouth_ shut, why was he so _stupid-_

The meal turns sour after that, and his little sibling wisely fall silent.

He always does forget that his father never accepts anything less than perfect.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid-_

The only sound in the room is the quiet clatter of cutlery on plates, and John bites his lip and shifts slightly, trying to find a comfortable position that doesn’t pull at the scratches on his back, at the bruises on his arms. He’s tired, wants to sleep, wants to shower and scrub at his skin until the only feeling left is the scratchy pain,and his mind is empty from all its dark thoughts.

His head aches from the pounding it took yesterday, the sharp crack to his skull still ringing in his ears. All throughout the day he had trouble focusing, on thinking much. He feels dizzy if he stands up too fast or moves at anything past a slow walk, and nodding or shaking his head makes him want to throw up.

He actually sort of wants to throw up now. Or cry.

But he’s not going to.

(He won’t get John’s tears. He won’t get his siblings. He can have everything else, but Henry Laurens Sr. can’t have _them.)_

Instead, he takes a slow breath through his nose and puts another bite of pasta to his lips. At least the food banishment is over. At least there’s that.

Small mercies: John lives off them.

His dad starts to drink. One beer gets guzzled down like it’s nothing, and then some sort of spirits, and then another beer, and another. John watches with some sort of terrible fascination, swears to himself that he was never going to drink, swears to himself that this will never be him.

But each bottle just lowers the ticking time bomb that is his father, and he knows that he has to get all his siblings upstairs and into their rooms, to safety, without the older man noticing.  He nervously taps his fingers on his lap, trying to push back the fog in his brain and _think._

He concludes that the only way to do it will probably be through distraction.

His stomach sinks. He hates being a distraction.

(He hates how much it _hurts_ to be a distraction.)

_Five minutes,_ he decides, _I’ll wait five minutes, and if nothing better pops up, I’ll do it._

And, because it’s just his luck, everything in those five minutes goes to hell.

John will never remember what set his father off, the memory blurred from concussion and trauma, but one minute it’s quiet and the next Henry Laurens is screaming and yelling and _angry,_ and John is screaming and yelling and angry back, red in the face, fists clenched.

Martha slowly stands up and gestures for the other kids to follow her, but perhaps it’s too soon, perhaps it’s just coincidence, but Henry Laurens spots them.

“Sit the _hell_ back down.”

Looking like startled rabbits, they sit, and Martha glances in his direction, eyes wide and panicked, looking for help, looking for guidance, looking for her big brother to pull through once again, and shit, _shit, she’s only twelve, she’s only twelve years old she shouldn’t have to bloody deal with this, she shouldn’t have to, she shouldn’t have to-_

John keeps yelling, makes himself louder, gesticulates grander. Every action is to draw attention to himself, to make himself a bigger target, and he doesn’t even know what’s he saying, what they’re arguing about, all he knows is that it’s not _working,_ that everytime his kid siblings try to leave their father keeps spotting them, keeps getting angrier about it, that John needs to think of something and think of something _fast-_

Henry Laurens Sr is a very intimidating man, John thinks idly, when he’s looming over you and covering your face with spit as all his insults rain on down.

“ _You are not going to a ruddy art school! No son of mine’ll be making pretty pictures like some fucking faggot-”_

John doesn’t know why he does it.

All he knows is that suddenly his heart is pounding and every muscle is thrumming with adrenaline, and he screams back, “I am a faggot! I like guys! I’m gay- I’m so fricken gay and you can’t beat it out of me! I’m gay and there’s nothing you can freaking do abou -”

His words get cut off when his father slams a fist into his stomach, snarling. Somewhere behind them both, there’s the sound of a little girl crying out.

_Mary._

Desperately, John prays that Henry will ignore it, internally thinking, _please be quiet, you have to be quiet, c’mon sweetheart, c’mon Mary, be quiet for Jacky, be quiet-_

Mary sniffles, and Martha and Henry Jr. and James hush her, but it’s too late.

Henry Laurens turns around.

_No,_ John thinks, scrambling to his feet, _Not Mary, not little Mary, not her. Not_ them. _Not any of them-_

“If I can’ bloody beat it out then I’ll have to give some better _persuasion-”_

The man grabs one of Mary’s stick thin wrist, pulls her out of the hoard of her siblings despite their cries of protest. The girl herself starts sobbing in earnest, tugging weakly at her hand in what must have been a tight, painful grip.

She looks up, eyes filled with tears, and John meets her scared gaze and sees _red._

He turns on his father, something dark and ugly in his chest, and in the next moment he’s in front of him and swinging.

His fist smashes into Henry Lauren’s nose.

Everything and everyone freezes.

John feels his eyes widen, feels his tance tighten, feels everything locking into place, bracing himself.

(Distantly, distantly, he realizes that he’s gotten taller, that he can now look his father in the eye.)

Then he gets bulldozed right into the wall, so hard that he can feel something _crack_ in his chest, so hard that suddenly breathing becomes impossible and his mouth opens up wide in a silent scream, pain flaring _everywhere._

His head gets slammed against the wall once, twice, a favourite tactic of his father’s. He’s endured it a hundred times before, but somehow the effects always feel the same. The world goes multicoloured and bright and then dim and faraway.

There’s another bang, and John sees stars.

He comes to only moments later, slumped to the ground in a crumpled heap, eyes opening enough to see Martha quickly herd the rest of his siblings up the stairs, face set in a determined, terrified line. She keeps glancing back, they all keep glancing back, and all John can think is _Good, good, they’re safe, they’re safe, I’ve done my job, they’re safe-_

Then Henry Laurens Sr. slams his foot into his injured ribs and John is letting out a ragged yell of pain, sweat beginning to stream down his face and every limb trembling.

This is standard procedure, the kicking, the curling into a ball, but it’s somehow so much worse. It _hurts_ so much worse. There’s blood streaming from the wounds in his head, getting into his eyes, making them sting, and every hit to his chest feels as if he’s being crushed by a cement wall and getting every inch of air sucked out of him by a massive vacuum all at once.

It’s agony.

Then comes the belt, quick painful lashes against his back and legs and arms, red oozing out of the new jarring cuts and old scabs reopening under the assault. It hurts. It hurts, _everything hurts-_

At some point, Henry Laurens grumbles off and starts drinking some more, loudly raving about something John can’t quite hear through the ringing in his ears. He doesn’t move, just lies still, just lies silent, hoping he’ll be ignored.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, time slipping through his fingers like sand. Could have been an hour, or two hours, or fifteen minutes. His father gets louder and louder, and then finally falls quiet. When he does, John relaxes, thinking that the worst is over, thinking that he’ll be able to retreat upstairs soon.

Then there’s the feeling of something sharp and pointed tracing up and down his spine, and Henry Laurens stinking breath in his face, and he tenses all over again.

His father is leaning over him with a kitchen knife.

_This is new,_ he dazedly thinks, even as ice seems to flood through his veins.

“ _Ya scared, Jacky?”_

John swallows, hard, shaking.

Hardly daring to move, he slowly, slowly nods.

_Go away,_ he thinks, _please just go away. Stop it, stop it, you’re h u r t i n g  m e, you’re s c a r i n g m e, Dad, Dad, please-_

“Good,” his father whispers, and then the tip of the knife rips through his shirt and presses into his skin, sharp and cold and _painful,_ and John can’t stop his screams.

He’s whimpering and crying out and letting out strangled high pitched gasping sounds from the torturous feeling of a blade slicing open his flesh, too dull a knife to be anything but slow and cruel and jagged and painful. He’s thrashing, trying to buck his father off, trying to stop the blinding agony blooming in his back. But he’s weak, he’s weak and exhausted and his ribs screech at him whenever he moves so much as an inch, and he can’t get him off, can only lie there, helpless, with soley a dislocated shoulder to show for all his efforts.

At some point, he thinks, he falls silent. Too silent. Lays still with nothing but the spasming muscles of his back and the silent tears leaking out of his eyes.

He doesn’t think he supposed to be crying, but the haze that’s descended over his vision makes everything seem unimportant, makes everything seem far away.

He’s reached his limit. It’s too much. He’s shutting down, it’s all shutting down.

He’s barely conscious when his father finishes, but he vaguely notices how slick and wet his back feels, how his shirt is soaked with more than water, how when the older man pulls away, the knife is dripping red.

His father says something, but John doesn't register it. Doesn’t even try.

A foot slams down on his elbow, and from somewhere deep inside him he manages to let loose a wrecked whimper when yet another jarring crack fills the room.

There’s a final, painful kick to his ribs, and then Henry Laurens is gone, stumbling off to bed as if he hadn’t just beat his eldest son until he was more bruise than boy, as if he was just leaving behind an old punching bag on the kitchen floor instead of a child.

John slips in and out of consciousness, feeling too hot and too cold all at once. At some point, he starts hacking up blood, which he’s pretty sure isn’t a good sign.

He doesn’t mind, much. He just wants everything to stop _hurting_.

So he lays there, everything distant and faraway, eyes getting heavier and heavier, closing more and more often, lying in a growing pool of his own blood.

  


There are voices. Distantly, he registers them, words sounding garbled as if through some faulty machine.

“ _-h my god. Oh- oh my god- Jack-”_

_“-that blood!? I think that’s blood! Is that blood-”_

_“James. J-James. Take Mary upstairs, okay? Wait there for us-”_

_“-don’t wanna go upstairs, wanna stay with Jacky! ‘S not fair!”_

_“-oh my god. Oh my god. Martha- Jack- Oh my god-”_

_“Henry, you’ve gotta- you’ve gotta calm down. Help me, help me find a phone-we have to… call someone, get help- check his pocke-”_

“ _Jacky! JACKY!”_

_“Shhh, Mary, shhh, you’re gonna wake up Dad. James, please-”_

_“O-Okay. I’ll- I’ll take her. Is he- is he gonna be okay?”_

_…_

_“I don’t- I don’t know. Do you have that phone yet, Henry?”_

_“F-found it.”_

_“G-good. Dial 911 for me, okay? James- Mary.”_

_“Got it.”_

There’s more whining and crying, something shuffling around him and hands on his person. John barely feels it, a heavy blanket between him and reality.

Weakly, he coughs again _. Is it just him, or is it getting harder to breathe?_

Something pats his face.

“- _ack?_ Jack? The lady says, she says you need to- to wake up. Jack?”

Martha. That- that’s Martha.

She sounds scared.

She shouldn’t sound scared.

Quietly, he groans, shifting his head to the side, eyes still closed. Martha needs him, he needs to get up, but it’s _hard,_ it’s hard, and it- it-

It _hurts._

The pain rushes him all at once,and his breath hitches and then he trembles from it, trembles all over, spasming, something like a whine keening from his throat.

“J-Jack?”

_It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts, god it hurts, it hurts so much-_

_Martha needs him._

“... ‘-arfa?”

His tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth, and the effort of saying the slurred word has him coughing up blood again. It tastes like copper: he doesn't think he’ll ever get the taste out of his mouth. Distantly, he can hear Henry’s shaky voice informing someone on the phone about this, but only distantly.

Everything’s so far away, here. He doesn’t think anything will ever feel real again. He doesn’t think he’ll ever feel real again. Even the pain is dulled.

“Jack! Jack- don’t, don’t go back to sleep. I- You have to stay awake. Jack? Jack, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

It takes momentous effort, but he manages to squint them open the tiniest amount.

Martha is leaning over him, close, and her eyes are filled with unshed tears stubbornly held through what looks like will alone. Her young brow is wrinkled with worry and her face pinched in a frown, and John wants to reach up and smooth her expression out, but he can't, he can't, he lacks the strength, lacks the power.

_He can’t, not anymore._

Instead, he tries for a smile. There’s blood on his teeth, but he’d do anything for his kid sister, even this, even smiling in the face of his own misery.

“‘ey there, daffodil, how’re y’doin?”

The tears in her eyes gets brighter, and she runs her small hands through his tangled blood matted hair.

“‘M fine. I think, I think I’ll be better when you are, though. Henry? How long- how long till the ambulance arrives?”

John coughs up more blood. Henry listens to something on the phone and leans over into his field of vision, his own face pinched and scared, and says something his ringing ears don't quite catch.

John feels a frown tugging at his lips.

“ -‘ailed you. m’sorry-”

Martha is shaking her head, shaking it fast, tears starting to fall a bit down her cheeks.

“You didn’t- you idiot- you didn’t fail us. Just don’t you dare die- okay- don’t you- _don’t you dare die-_ ”

John wants to say something in return, but all that comes up is more blood, and he hacks it out, every jarring motion making him want to scream from the pain in his ribs, in his arm, in his shoulder. It makes his back sting and _throb,_ makes him want to cry.

It’s getting really hard to breathe.

He’s feeling a little scared, now. He doesn't think he wants to die. Not like this, with his kid siblings still so fearful and unsafe. Blindingly, he flops his good arm around looking for something to hold onto to, something to grip close and tight.

Henry reaches out and takes it, despite how wet and bloody his fingers are. The younger boy squeezes, tight, and there are definitely tears on his face, and John wants to swoop him up and hold him close and tell him that’s he’s so, so good, that he’s being so brave, that he loves him so, so much-

But he can’t. He can hardly even garner the strength to give the lightest of squeezes back.

He forces his uncooperative lungs and throat to speak up, despite the pain it brings.

“‘S gonna be ‘lright, kay? Pr’mise.”

They’re nodding, they’re nodding and John really can't breathe, he just keeps coughing up blood, his eyes are so heavy, and everything hurts so much.

His vision is wavering, darkening, his feels heart is slowing down.

_I’m dying,_ he thinks, _this is it._

His siblings are screaming at him, yelling and slapping his cheeks, telling him to _wake up, wake up, please,_ and John is so, so tired. He’s so, so tired, and he’s trying, he’s trying but he just _can’t._

_Sorry,_ he thinks, _sorry-_

Distantly, he thinks he hears the sound of sirens, and then the world goes black.

 

Time passes in a haze. He would think he’s dead, but dead wouldn’t hurt so much.

There are sirens and hands on him, flashing lights that brighten the world around him even under his closed eyelids. Hands, more hands, hands everywhere. Tearing away at his shirt, grabbing at his limbs, holding him down. He wants to tell them to go away, but he’s too far gone.

Snippets. Snippets of time, gone and there and gone again. He won’t remember any of it.

At some point he wakes up. There are people all around him and they have scalpels and all John can think is _no, not again never again,_ and he’s screaming and thrashing and then stilling, stilling, something thin and sharp and cold plunging into his neck and its contents into his bloodstream.

Days, months, years: time blends together in a drugged concoction of his own consciousness.There’s pain and there’s a light, floating sensation that makes him feel like a balloon, and sometimes he wakes up and thinks he sees apparitions of his siblings.

He hopes they’re okay.

It’s actually thoughts of them that make him make his struggling way back into wakefulness in the first place, something heavy and concerned in his chest, because he’s left them alone too long, because he’s supposed to be _taking care of them-_

But he wakes up, and there’s a small hand in his own already, a bright light voice talking about a new science teacher of some sort while another voice complains that it’s their turn to speak.

Joh blinks, squinting against the light of the room. He tries to shift towards the voices, but the movement makes pain flare in his chest and back and his… everywhere, and he inhales air sharply- the jarring breath making his chest burn _worse-_ eyes clamping shut once more.

“Jacky? Can you hear me? Martha! Harry! I think Jack’s waking up again!”

He opens his eyes once more, slowly turning his head to face his kid siblings. Mary is bouncing up and down in front of him, a million watt grin on her face. James is still holding his hand, perhaps a little too tight now that he knows John can actually feel it, but he doesn't mind. Quickly approaching from the seats in the corner of the room, the teen can see Martha and Henry.

He clears his throat, trying to get past the dryness of it, trying to get his most pressing questions out first.

“A-are you guys okay?”

“Fine!” they all chorus, sounding as if they had repeated the answers many times before. John scrutinizes them, looking for the lie, but there’s nothing seemingly wrong that he can catch, and he knows them best.

Which is… good. It’s good. Better than he was expecting.

“Okay,” he says, swallowing saliva, “Where, where are we?”

This time, James pops in.

“The hospital! You’ve been sleeping for like, weeks, lazy head.”

John shoots a mild glare at the eight year old, again checking for signs of abuse on his little brothers and sisters. But no. There’s nothing. No bruises that he doesn’t already know about, or knicks or scars. No especially sallow cheeks, or tired eyes. In fact, they look healthier than he’s seen them for a long time.

He feels a sinking in his stomach. Was it him, then, that made their father like that? Was it his fault?

But Martha’s stepping forward, her eyes a little too bright, a little too old for her twelve years. But they’re still just as kind, just as good, and when she reaches out John genty lifts his cast forward until she can hold onto the tips of his exposed fingers.

“He’s in jail, Jack. We- they- he’s in jail. He can't hurt us anymore. The police’ll want your testimony, but it's done. We’re _safe._ ”

John can't quite believe it.

Once, when he was thirteen and things had started to get bad, he had walked down to the police station and tried to get his father convicted. There had been an investigation, but his father was rich and cunning, for all his alcoholism, and a well liked Senator. The evidence was lacking, the facts easily lied about, and the case didn’t go through.

In retaliation, however, their father had locked all five kids into one of the storage rooms for a week with limited water and even more limited food. Mary had been three, and John had been helpless, trying to rock her and shush her and quieten her, constantly failing as she wailed and wailed and wailed, James often joining in after the first few days. He had wanted his Mom _desperately_ , knowing that she would have known what to do, knowing that if she had been there, none of this would have happened at all. The only feeling greater than his want was the bubbling hatred he felt towards seeing his siblings so unhappy and unhealthy and scared and hungry, and he had promised himself _never again- never, never again-_

The abuse got worse, but John never tried again. He didn’t dare.

And now this.

They’re free. They’re _safe._ He sort of wants to cry.

He never has to hurt again. Never has to be the distraction.

Never again.

It doesn’t quite feel real yet.

Martha, Henry, and James took turns talking about the family hosting them- the Manning’s- who have a daughter named Martha, too. (The teen was apparently John’s age and had an awesome nail polish collection which she would paint the girls’ toes and fingers with.) They talk about the cool treehouse in the yard and the barbecue they had over the weekend. About how they’re going to a new school, about their teachers and classmates and new friends. About how nice everyone is.

It sounds too good to be true. Maybe John did die after all. Maybe this is heaven.

Mary finally bursts in, holding up her wrist to the light, talking about how John has to kiss it for her- newly six and still fully convinced that there’s some sort of magic to it- about how the Manning’s and Martha don’t do it right.

John lets her clamber up onto the bed and winces at the mottled green and yellows ringing the appendage, leftover from Henry Lauren’s grip. But he kisses it dutifully, even ending the circle he makes with a kiss right on her nose, making her giggle.

Something starts to uncoil in his chest.

Later, Martha will stop by all on her own and start crying in earnest, talking about how unfair it was, about how sorry she was, because he didn’t deserve to go through that, didn't deserve that, why would he do that, why did he take it all on his own shoulders, why did he let him hurt him so much. John will just pull her to his side as much as he can, whispering in her ear soft comforts and warm phrases until the tear banks dry out and she calms down, and maybe he cries a little bit, too.

He doesn’t tell her that he would do it all again in a heartbeat, if it meant keeping her safe. He doesn’t think it will help.

Later, John will take his first wobbly steps around the room and begin the masses of physical and psychotherapy recommended to him. Later, he’ll look into a mirror a doctor holds up for him and will get to see the message his father has carved into his skin, the letters FAG bright and red and angry against his freckled back. He’ll cry, knowing it will scar, knowing he’s going to be marred for the rest of his life, that taking his shirt off is probably always going to be uncomfortable and nerve wracking from now on.

But also, later, when his arm is more recovered and his ribs are more healed, he’ll move into the Ramsey’s himself and become fast friends with Martha 2-O, who snarks with the best of them and knows how to make him laugh. He’ll toss a ball with Henry in the yard and play pirates in the treehouse with James, sometimes sitting in for afternoon tea time with Mary and both Martha’s, holding the ridiculously tiny cups and pointing his pinky out as instructed, speaking in a bad imitation of a British accent and snorting at the other’s own attempts.

He’ll read those books he never had time for, improve in his schooling and finally have the time to do his homework and get to bed at a decent hour. He’ll get to listen to the music he wants, to let it vibrate through the whole house until he can hear it thrumming in his bones. He’ll be able to dance, look at art colleges, go to parties, kiss a boy.

He’s going to have bad days. Days where he’s angry and frustrated, days where he’s quiet and flinching at sudden movements and loud noises, days where he keeps his siblings a little too close and pushes everyone else a little too far away.

But that’s okay.

Right now, where he is, lying in a hospital bed with his siblings all around him, arguing about who should get to go first to sign his cast, arguing about how much room they can take up, laughing and joking and giggling and teasing, he thinks he feels okay.

It doesn't feel real, not quite yet, but it’s a turning point, and that’s enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next fic in this series will be the 'It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better' part. Thanks for reading Turning Points!


End file.
